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Smash Court Tennis 3 is Namco Bandai's latest attempt at trying to take the tennis sim crown from the Top Spin series, and it's the first big-screen appearance of the franchise in four years. And while SCT3 is still a very simulation-heavy title, the presence of a new Arcade mode and some mini-game training elements are a nod toward the pick-up-and-play appeal of Sega's Virtua Tennis series. In theory it's a good plan, since it should give every aspiring virtual tennis pro something to like. But in practice, lackluster controls, ambiguous presentation, and a very steep learning curve are three faults that prevent SCT3 from being a true ace.

SCT3 definitely comes out swinging, with 16 of tennis's top talents signed on to appear in the game, including Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, James Blake, David Nalbandian, Justine Henin, Maria Sharapova, Amelie Mauresmo, and Martina Hingis. And while it might be missing out on a few of today's biggest stars, like the Williams sisters, players can round out the roster with a robust create mode that's on par with most other sports game character-creation modes.

SCT3 offers five different play modes for your racqueting pleasure. Arcade mode is a quick, single-elimination tournament style of play for up to two players. Exhibition mode lets you set up one singles or doubles match of up to five sets of six games, each with scalable difficulty and your choice of player and court. You can also choose team play, pitting two teams of up to eight members against each other.

Xbox Live Mode is essentially Exhibition mode online, allowing you to play largely lag-free tennis against players across the world in a quest to rise up the requisite leaderboards. And Tutorial mode boasts 22 lessons that teach you the fundamentals of the controls, and because of the game's difficulty, it's an absolute must for newcomers. It's possible to complete Tutorial mode with flying colors in just over half an hour and still get your head handed to you in your first few tournaments against players ranked 200th or worse.

Playing With the Pros

The meat and potatoes of SCT3 is the Pro Tour mode, where you choose or create a player and compete across the years of your career in 12-week seasons of tournaments and other events, such as taking on higher-ranked players in training matches, playing training mini-games to boost your skills, proving yourself to sponsors, convincing another player to be your doubles partner, and shopping for new gear with the cash you earn from competition. But thanks to the game's stamina system, you can't just remain on the go the whole time. You have to balance performance-hindering levels of exhaustion with playing tournaments and increasing your ranking.

There's a strong RPG element to Pro Tour mode as well. You level-up different stats and purchase new skills with the experience points you earn by completing goals. You earn experience whether you win or lose -- though obviously wins earn more points than losses -- so even if you're stinking up the court, you continue to improve incrementally. Eventually, increased stats and hands-on experience with the game will increase your win count, but it's very possible that some inexperienced players won't have the patience to endure getting beaten time and time again while they inch their stats up.